i read an article about the Garden that freaked me out this morning. Do you know that the Garden pays $0 in property taxes EVERY year AND gets an almost $11million tax exemption each year b/c of some bull*hit that ed koch agreed to back in 1982 b/c the ownership back then was threatening to take the rangers and knicks out of NY. btw - thank you once again to the Garden for having us, the taxpayer, foot their bills....Did you know that Con Edison has a flat yearly rate for the garden at $350,000 per year in electricity costs. which, in turn, costs each taxpayer 5 cents. add all this stuff up and what do you get....WE pay for the garden's mistakes.
Here's the article: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/knicks/2007/10/04/2007-10-04_were_all_paying_garden_sin_tax.html?ref=rss
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Michael Daly
We're all paying Garden sin tax
Thursday, October 4th 2007, 4:00 AM
All but a fraction of the jury's award in the big sexual harassment suit will be covered by the $10.9 million tax break Madison Square Garden receives from the city each and every year.
Which is another way of saying we help subsidize the piggish behavior of the rich brat who runs the Garden, James Dolan.
Dolan seems to delight in what has been termed "Jim-nastics," abusing and firing the help. He has added cause to laugh every three months, when the city Department of Finance mails the Garden its property tax bill, officially known as a Quarterly Statement of Account.
"WE WANT TO HELP YOU PAY THE RIGHT AMOUNT ON TIME," the top of the page announces.
The building in question is listed as 420 Eighth Ave. The owner's name is "Madison Sq Garden Etc.," the etcetera in this case being Cablevision, the empire owned by the brat's generally decent father, Charles Dolan, known as "the leprechaun who can count."
The bill lists the annual tax that would otherwise be due:
"Tax Before Exemptions and Abatements: $10,886,054."
Directly below that is the magic math the various owners of the Garden have enjoyed for a quarter century:
"Annual Property Tax Payable: $0"
The break was approved by the New York State Legislature in 1982, when the then owners of Madison Square Garden were threatening to leave town with the Knicks and the Rangers.
"When someone has a gun to your head and says, 'Your money or your life,' sometimes you have to give your money," state Sen. Franz Leichter was quoted as saying in reluctant support.
"Welfare for the rich," state Sen. James Donovan was quoted observing.
The deal was negotiated by the city and then-Mayor Ed Koch, who thought the tax break would expire after a decade.
In what is either criminal oversight or an overlooked crime, the only 10-year limit in the deal as enacted by the Legislature is on the time the owners are required to keep the teams in New York.
Otherwise, the Garden gets the tax break for however long the Knicks and Rangers play under its roof.
Over time, with adjustments for inflation, the perpetual tax break has been worth some $250 million. Half of that has gone to the Dolans since they bought the Garden in 1994.
That extra $10 million a year has given them a nice little cushion to shrug at a sexual harassment suit or stymie a plan to build a stadium on the West Side.
Another big opponent to the West Side stadium was Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, one of the gang of three in Albany whose consent would be needed to end the Garden's tax abatement. The Dolans' lobbyists have included Silver's former top assistant.
Last year, Mayor Bloomberg called for the end of the tax break. The City Council has long had a "home rule memo" in committee that would call for the Legislature to cease this quarterly outrage. The Council measure has sat there quarter after quarter as the brat has gotten tax bill after tax bill with that outrageous "$0."
As if that were not insult enough, the same bill that gave the Garden the tax break also provided for a flat rate in its Con Ed bill, with a 15% discount worth about $350,000 a year.
One legislator suggested in 1982 this translated into every Con Ed customer kicking in a dime. That has added up to about $8,750,000 or around $2.50 per customer over the last 25 years.
"The Garden's still getting it," a Con Ed spokesman reported yesterday.
Meanwhile, the Garden continues to squeeze every penny of profit it can. The Garden has charged the NYPD $120,000 for holding its two-hour Police Academy graduation there. Tourists who wish to tour the empty building are charged $17 for adults.
"$12 for children 12 and under," a recorded voice at the Garden says.
Which means that the Garden charges a youngster more to tour its premises than it pays in property taxes.
And if the sexual harassment case did not convince you the Garden has no sense of shame, consider those numbers again:
"Tax Before Exemptions and Abatements: $10,886,054
Annual Property Tax Payable: $0."
Enjoy.
10/4/2007 3:15 PM
